


January

by CosmicZombie



Category: Tennis RPF
Genre: Angst, Fluff, M/M, saschanos being idiots as per usual, the AO exhibition match is entirely to blame for this
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-01-16
Updated: 2020-01-16
Packaged: 2021-02-27 07:21:18
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,663
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22273216
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/CosmicZombie/pseuds/CosmicZombie
Summary: It all comes to a head in Brisbane, when Stefanos is least expecting it.
Relationships: Stefanos Tsitsipas/Alexander Zverev
Comments: 17
Kudos: 61





	January

**Author's Note:**

> Saschanos playing doubles at the AO exhibition match today killed me and I needed to write to vent all of my feelings about it. This is just a silly little short thing that I wrote in a couple hours break from dissertation work, so it's not high quality or anything, but I felt like the occasion needed to be marked by fic! Knowing me I could have turned this into a proper long thing and spent more time on it, but I'm already busy trying to finishing the long Saschanos fic I'm working on so this will have to do the way it is. If only they weren't so inspiring I'd have more time to write all the things I want about them lol. 
> 
> I really hope you enjoy, as always feedback honestly just makes my day <3

It all comes to a head in Brisbane, when Stefanos is least expecting it.

He’s known it was there since Geneva, and for months that it wasn’t going away anytime soon – but he’d always thought it was useless, and had accordingly resigned himself to silence. Of course, he hadn’t counted on Sascha. Stefanos knows he’d have managed to squash it down and let it chip quietly away at him with no one knowing if it hadn’t been for Sascha. Sascha, freshly showered with fluffy dark-blonde curls and a muted green t-shirt, storming into Stefanos’s hotel room less than an hour after the exhibition match. The door slams shut behind him, taking all the air out of the room with it. Stef blinks, and slowly sets down his book, feeling the familiar stutter of his heart in his chest at Sascha’s presence. Generally speaking, Stefanos is better around him than he used to be, but in moments like this where he’s totally caught off-guard and Sascha is glaring at him across the room, all blazing eyes and fire, it’s hard not to feel overwhelmed.

“Have I done something to piss you off?” Sascha demands, arms crossed mutinously across his chest, and Stef is struck by how strange it is to hear the hostility in his voice. It’s only in realising how long it’s been since he was used to only hearing Sascha’s voice like that that Stef realises how accustomed he’s become to knowing it differently. Low, relaxed, when they’re talking between practice sets or watching Netflix sprawled across one or other of their beds; amused and delighted when Stefanos whispers a joke into his ear when they’re waiting outside the press room; rough and sleepy when Sascha can’t be bothered dragging himself back to his room after a movie marathon and eventually crashes out on Stefanos’s bed in the midst of a conversation.

It feels so wrong, to hear it so different to all of those ways now Stefanos knows they exist. He frowns at Sascha, confused. “No?” he curves the word up like a question, because it is, because he wants Sascha to explain what the hell is going on. He tosses his book aside gets up off the bed warily, running a hand through his tousled curls as he approaches Sascha.

“Only you blanked me about five times on court today,” Sascha says coldly, his jaw set. He hasn’t moved from by the door and is watching Stefanos tightly. His eyes are like January.

Stefanos stares at him, dumbfounded. They’ve only been something vaguely resembling friends for a few months, but Stefanos’s not sure he’s ever seen Sascha quite like this. He’s seen him pissed off and jet-lagged, frustrated after practice or conversations with his Dad, so angry with himself after losses Stef knows he’s millimetres away from tears – but this is different. Sascha’s doing a very good job of looking pissed off, but there’s something more than that behind the iciness of his gaze, and Stef recognises it because they’re things he knows all too well. Insecurity, fear, helplessness. Maybe once Stef wouldn’t have been able to recognise it in Sascha, but he knows him better now. The thought in itself makes Stefanos’s heart beat faster. 

“I blanked you?” Stefanos repeats, uncertainly, because he doesn’t quite know what this is and has no memory of having ignored Sascha. He’s often wished he was capable of doing so, he thinks it would have made all of this a lot easier to get over. 

“Almost every time I went to high-five you or say hi or whatever, you just _blanked_ me, like I wasn’t even there,” Sascha is talking quickly, as though he’s afraid of the words or what they mean rather than angry about them, although he’s still doing a good job of looking pissed off, arms crossed sullenly across his chest and his jaw clenched as he watches Stefanos mutinously.

To Stefanos’s horror, laughter suddenly bubbles up inside him, unstoppable. He bites his lip and ducks his head but he knows from the expression on Sascha’s face he hasn’t missed it.

“What’s so funny?” Sascha scowls, but the coldness of his gaze is melting a little, the softest hint of a smile tugging at the corners of his mouth. Stef realises he only knows that because of how many times he’s seen Sascha smile, and the thought sobers him enough to answer.

“You,” Stefanos shakes his head, smiling bemusedly. His heart is thudding at the way Sascha is looking at him, unreadable and intent. “I can’t believe you.”

“What?” Sascha demands, again, but he uncrosses his arms and steps into Stefanos’s space. He’s still scowling, but something in the air between them has shifted.

“You really don’t know, do you?” Stefanos grins.

“Don’t know _what_?” Sascha presses, his scowl deepening. Stefanos loves how petulant he can look at times like this, likes to imagine how impossible he must have been as a child.

“You only used to do that to me every single time we met,” Stefanos tells him, gently, because a tiny little crease of hurt uncertainty has appeared between Sascha’s eyebrows.

“I did?” Sascha’s tone has changed completely, quiet and confused. His eyes are intent, his gaze holding Stefanos’s in the suddenly heavy space that hangs between them, saturated with all the unspoken things Stefanos abruptly feels are uncomfortably close to the surface.

“Yeah,” Stefanos shrugs, as though it’s nothing, as though the memory of it doesn’t still make his heart ache. “It’s no big deal,” he adds, untruthfully, because he can’t bear how lost Sascha looks.

“Yes it is,” Sascha mumbles, quiet. He looks at Stefanos, uncertain and intent, the ice melting, letting Stefanos in. All pretence of anger has been dropped, his arms hanging listlessly by his sides like he’s suddenly unsure what to do with them. “So today was –” he breaks off unsteadily, gaze flickering up to meet Stefanos’s, imperceptible, “It was you showing me what a dick I used to be?”

“What?” Stefanos frowns. “Sasch,” he calls Sascha “Sasch” all the time now, but it still gives him a tiny thrill to say it, reminds him that Sascha actually likes him now even if it’s not in the way Stefanos really wants. Maybe he says it now to remind Sascha of that, because Sascha looks unlike Stefanos has known him in the entire time they’ve been friends, “How much of an asshole do you think I am?” 

“Do you really want me to answer that?” Sascha asks, the habit of a faint hint of a smile pulling at the corners of his mouth even though his eyes are still serious.

Despite himself, Stefanos rolls his eyes. “Of course I wasn’t deliberately blanking you, we’re friends, aren’t we?”

“Are we friends?” Sascha asks, and all humour is gone now. Everything about him is suddenly serious, from the set of his mouth to the way he meets Stefanos’s eyes, grey gaze searching Stefanos’s as though there’s an answer there he’s afraid to find. He’s somehow closer than Stefanos had realised until now, so close that Stefanos can feel the faint brush of Sascha’s exhales against his lips. Sascha’s breathing hard and fast, as though they’re still out on court in front of thousands of people – only it’s just the two of them, standing alone in the quiet of Stefanos’s hotel room.

“Don’t you want to be?” Stefanos asks, and his heart is suddenly pounding so hard he feels dizzy. It’s partly do with how close Sascha suddenly is and how he can smell the warmth of his skin and the guava shower gel he always uses and sometimes leaves in Stefanos’s shower, the same intoxicating scent that clings to Stefanos’s sheets after Sascha has crashed out on his bed. It’s more to do with the idea of not being friends, of going back to the agonising silence of before. Stefanos knows he could easily bear anything but that.

Slowly, Sascha shakes his head. “I don’t think I do,” he murmurs, and then he’s kissing Stefanos. One hand comes up to cup Stefanos’s jaw and he pulls him in, slow and deep and tentative, like it’s as easy as breathing, something they’ve done a million times. Stefanos can hardly believe it’s not for how right it feels, Sascha’s mouth on his like this. It’s all soft warm heat, the faint rasp of stubble against Stefanos’s cheek, the cool metal of Sascha’s necklaces digging into his chest from where they’re pressed up against each other. He can feel Sascha’s hand trembling like he’s as afraid as Stefanos had felt every time Sascha stood too close or got too affectionate when he was drunk, but then Stefanos lets his teeth graze the fullness of Sascha’s lower lip and Sascha lets out a low sound deep in his chest and pulls Stefanos closer, deepening the kiss. It’s so good it’s dizzying, and all Stefanos can do is clutch Sascha closer and try and remember how to breathe.

“Is that okay?” Sascha asks when they both break away, gasping for air, his voice slightly hoarse. His cheeks are tinged with pink and Stefanos can feel the tension in his body from where they’re pressed together, like he’s still nervous. “I mean, that I don’t want to be friends,” Sascha bites his lip, looking more unsure of himself than Stefanos has ever seen him, “I’d honestly much rather be this.” His freshly washed hair is mussed from where Stefanos must have run his hands through it, his eyes full of uncertainty as he looks at Stefanos intently, like he can’t see anything else.

Stefanos feels his heart fumble a beat in his chest at the disarming familiarity of it, at the strangeness of seeing what he has felt for so long reflected back at him. Wordlessly, tenderly, he pulls Sascha in again, feeling the soft sound Sascha makes reverberate between them as he loses himself to everything that had once seemed impossible.


End file.
